I climb the porch steps and knock on the door.

Nobody answers.

I knock again, harder. I find a doorbell, but when I press it I don’t hear any sound.

“I don’t think he’s home,” Seth says.

“No, he’s home. That’s his car.” I point. I bang on the door with the flat of my hand. “Damian! Open up! It’s Lex!”

No answer.

He’s mad at me. Maybe I shouldn’t scream “it’s Lex” quite so loudly.

I try his cell again. I try the home number. We listen to it ringing inside the house.

I feel more desperate with each ring. “Damian!” I scream. “Come on!”

Seth looks worried. “Lexie, what’s this about? Why are you so . . . freaked?”

“Damian was Ty’s friend. Ty’s and Patrick’s.” I bang again. “Damian!”

“Yeah, so. . .”

“So he’s depressed right now. And I did something on Saturday that upset him, and he didn’t show up to school today, and he posted this poem on the internet, and . . .” I call the house number again. “Come on, pick up, Damian.”

It rings and rings.

Seth looks at the house with a new awareness. “So you think he might off himself?” He glances at me, cringes. “Sorry. You think he would . . .”

“I think he would. I have to get in there.”

Seth pounds on the door. “Damian! Come on out, dude!”

I go around the side of the house, checking the windows. They’re all locked. I try the back door. Locked. I try the other side of the house.

On that side I suddenly become aware of music floating down from a second-story window. Acoustic guitar. Then a lone male voice.

Robert Plant’s voice. From “Stairway to Heaven.”

“Damian!” I holler up at the window.

No answer. No movement. Nothing.

Seth comes up beside me. He squints at the house. “Hey, there’s a light on,” he says.

“I’d bet money that’s Damian’s room.” I glance around wildly. There’s no way to get up there, no convenient, helpful tree or gutter to climb. I cry out in frustration and head back to the front door, Seth trailing me.

“Are you going to call the cops?” he asks warily, like he gets why I would need to do that, but he’s not too fond of the police.

“No. It would take too long. I need to get in there now,” I say, my mind going a mile a minute. I turn to face him. “Pick the lock.”

“What.”

“He’s in there. He could be dead already. He could be dying. Right now. Do it, Seth.”

Seth glances toward the bedroom window. “You think he’s killing himself right now.”

“I think there’s a strong possibility. If we’re lucky, he didn’t do it fifteen minutes ago. I know he was alive an hour ago. But now I don’t know.”

He rubs a hand over the back of his head. “Man.”

“Pick the lock, Seth.”

“Hey. I don’t know how to pick a lock. What, did you think that just because I smoke and ride a motorcycle and I have some tattoos, it must mean I’m a criminal? Hey, what are you doing now?”

I don’t look up from my phone. “Googling how to pick a lock.”

“You’re—”

I dump my backpack out onto the grass and sort through what comes out until I find two large paper clips. I get to work shaping them into lockpicks.

Sometimes it pays to be a nerd and carry around a large assortment of office supplies as a general habit.

“Whoa,” Seth says. “I don’t know if I like this. It’s illegal, right, breaking and entering?”

I’m on the porch by this point, crouching in front of the door.

“You’re making me, like, an accessory,” Seth says.

I push the straightened pin into the lock. “You’re free to go.”

He doesn’t go, though. He watches me as I try and fail and try and fail again.

“Okay, so, you can’t pick the lock, so what are you going to do n—”

“Here.” I hand my phone to him. “Read it out loud to me—the part with the raking. It says the squiggly paper clip is the rake, and the straight one is the tension wrench, but then what does it say?”

He stares at me. “Lexie.”

“Help or go, Seth. Help or go.”

He sighs and clears his throat lightly. “‘First, slip your tension wrench into the bottom of the keyhole and use gentle pressure in the direction you want to turn the lock. Then, take your rake and quickly slide it back and forth to jostle the pins into place.’”

“Go on.” I swipe at my forehead with my sleeve. “What next?”

“‘After raking back and forth through the lock, quickly jerk the rake out of the keyhole while attempting to turn the tension wrench. If everything has gone just right—’”

There’s a loud click. I turn the knob. The door swings open.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Seth murmurs.

I’m already taking the stairs two at a time. I’m sprinting down the upstairs hall. “Damian!”

I follow the music to the last door on the left. The song is in the hard rock part of it by this time, loud and wailing. I try the door. It’s locked.

I left the paper clips downstairs.

I imagine Damian behind this door, his body sprawled on the carpet, his wrists cut and bleeding, his eyes open but unseeing.